The present disclosure relates generally to virtual systems, and more particularly, to virtual processor management.
A virtual machine is a piece of software that, when executed on appropriate hardware, creates an environment allowing the virtualization of an actual physical computer system. Each virtual machine running on the physical system may function as a self-contained platform, running its own operating system (OS) and software applications (processes).
A host machine (e.g., computer or server) is typically enabled to simultaneously run one or more virtual machines, where each virtual machine may be used by a local or remote client. The host machine allocates a certain amount of the host's resources to each of the virtual machines. Each virtual machine may use the allocated resources to execute applications, including operating systems known as guest operating systems.
A host machine typically uses a hypervisor to virtualize the underlying hardware of the host machine or emulate hardware devices, thus making the use of the virtual machine transparent to the guest operating system or the remote client that uses the virtual machine. The hypervisor manages allocation and virtualization of computer resources. An example of computer resources is a set of processors.